This group creates recipes. They do it by reading the existing literature for a particular dish, initially testing some recipes by cooking them and having a set of tasters rate the outcome, developing hypotheses about what will improve the taste, testing the hypotheses by making the modified dishes and assessing the taste with the tasting panel, repeating the hypothesis & test cycle as needed, and then eventually writing up and publishing the results.

Their goals are to make dishes with the most pleasing taste and the least process effort, so their hypotheses involve altering ingredients and procedures to optimize taste and processing. A hypothesis produces a recipe. They test the hypotheses by making the dish according to the recipe and assessing the dish using their tasting panel, gathering feedback and reformulating hypotheses.

A specific hypothesis might be, for instance, that replacing half of the refined sugar with molasses in a cookie recipe will improve the tasting panel's reaction.

The final writeup includes the recipe as well as a brief history of the recipe development and testing process.